American Philosophical Society, January 17 to April 20, 1956. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin (Wilson - private) Portrait of Benjamin Franklin (Wilson-State) Portrait of Deborah Franklin Sellers, Charles Coleman, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (New Haven: Yale University, 1962) pp. 409-10, Pl. 2. In 1758 Franklin commissioned this portrait for himself, and a copy (now unlocated) for his friend Dr. Phineas Bond. He sent it home, where it hung in his house until 1778, when the British officer Maj. John André (who had been quartered in Franklin's home) removed it to give to his superior officer, Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Grey. It remained in Grey's family until the bicentennial of Franklin's birth in 1906, when Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, the Governor General of Canada, returned it to the United States, sending it directly to the President at the White House. We acknowledge the courtesy of the White House Historical Association (www.whitehousehistory.org) |
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